The Book of Sand
by slightowl
Summary: Weiss Kreuz/Sandman crossover. The influence of the Endless on the lives of Schwarz. Crawford/Schuldig. (Originally posted in 2010.)
1. The Garden of Forking Paths

title: the book of sand  
fandom: weiss kreuz/neil gaiman's sandman  
characters: crawford/schuldig, bit of farfarello & nagi, the endless, and other surprise appearances.  
word count: 12,137 (whoa, whoa.)  
rating: nc-17, for sex, mild violence, liberal use of a word that starts with f and ends with uck, and ~ schuldig, in general.  
notes: This is probably understandable, even if you've never read any of the Sandman comics. Basically: _"There are seven beings, that aren't gods. They existed, before humanity dreamed of gods and will exist long after the last god has gone. They are - more or less - embodiments of the forces of the universe. They are named - in order of age - Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (who was Delight before). That is all you need to know." (Brief Lives)_

* * *

_part i, the garden of forking ways_

Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream?

Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried,

Almost for consolation, if the bygone period

Over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme,

Might not have been just a magical illusion

~ borges

* * *

If the garden looks familiar, it's because you've been here before. There is some part of you that remembers those magnolias and their kind of smell, the kind you take in with your stomach instead of your nose. Some part of you that remember the colors; brilliant and unearthly and existing too briefly to be named, but then do they even exist?

There is a creek in this garden, cutting its own labyrinthine path through the hedges. You can follow it, past the groves of swollen citrus fruit, through the provinces of the invertebrates. You can travel upstream or downstream. You can double back. You can get lost. It doesn't matter. Follow it for long enough, and you'll end up in the wide courtyard that signals the very center of the garden. That's where they are.

You could say that the statues are large, but really they are spaceless. There are seven, marble-white and human, if only in the geometric sense of the word. You know them, of course, but only with the same distant familiarity that comes with seeing a childhood friend, thirty-years-two-divorces-and-prostate-cancer down the line. It's the type of memory that can be equated with instinct, hardwired into the nervous system. Especially her, she makes you smile, the pretty young girl with the nurturing face and the ankh at the base of her throat.

The boys can see the statues from their favorite trail, but only when the treeline opens and then, there they are — those implacable faces. They are not afraid of the faces, because fear is something that you learn while you're alive. These boys are not yet alive.

You see boys because you expect to see boys; one taller and stronger and dark-haired, and the other thin and quick. It is easy to get the impression that they are the same Brad Crawford and Schuldig whom we will meet again in just a handful of paragraphs, but they are only outlines. Pure, in one sense, but showing the first clumsy and crude implications of a human being. To avoid confusion. these incipient forms will be referred to using the lower-case, crawford and schuldig.

crawford wears non-existent glasses over his non-existent eyes. Both boys have their non-existent trousers rolled up to the knee. They sit side by side on a tree branch. The red-haired boy is drinking sugared rosewater, and he cleans his fingertips in his mouth, one at a time. _Swear I saw him_, he says to crawford. _Walking around the courtyard with the statues. S'got a giant book chained to his wrist._

_Liar_, crawford tells him, without any conviction. It is lukewarm, his senses are disordered, and he is pleasantly bored. He tosses the pit of his fruit into the creek below them and wipes his hands on the legs of his pants. Then he stretches, and leans over to taste the sugar trapped in the rivulets of schuldig's lips. _You wouldn't even tell the truth by accident._

_I swear_, schuldig mutters, and tugs at the down on crawford's arms, just hard enough to be impolite. _You didn't believe me about the ruins, either. Not until I took you there and you saw for yourself._

crawford draws back, considers this. He remembers the smell of the place, like stagnant water, and the vaulted niche under heavy layers of spanish moss. Remembers what schuldig looked like dozing on the remains of the high altar, all thin legs and copper hair. schuldig belonged up there, with those turrets and columns that supported nothing at all.

crawford had snagged the sole of his foot on a thorn. When he'd touched the wound and brought his fingertips to his face to stare, there was red. schuldig had asked, _What __is __that? _

crawford put the liquid on his tongue, then spit it out. He had no reference for that taste at all, not like fruit or sweetwater or honey or nectar. _You're leaking_, schuldig had said. They'd laughed.

Now, schuldig insists: _Let me show you_.

Their time to leave the garden is near, although neither of them knows it. Already they are starting to feel that rebelliousness towards order, losing trust in the unnamed authority of the statues, forming human attachments to ideas and to each other, even though they don't yet have the vocabulary to express it.

A long-legged bird scuffles through the grass. crawford waits a long time before answering, and when he does, it's only because schuldig is staring at him, face full of exaggerated solemnness. _Oh, all right._

* * *

schuldig isn't lying.

They crouch down behind a boulder and wait. It is early morning and it is spring, because it is always spring in this garden. When schuldig finally spots him, he throws one hand over crawford's mouth, and points wildly with the other, which is unnecessary. crawford would have seen the man with his eyes closed. Seen him and felt the same static crawl of fate over his skin, a sensation of desperate piety that he will never feel again, not to anything — not even for time itself.

The man's grey robes trail behind him; face reduced to nose and mouth by a low-hanging cowl. He is immensely tall, and must be, in order to support the weight of the chains that link his wrist to the book. The book is massive in itself, with sun-cracked leather covers and pages that make the same sound as the earth does, spinning spinning on its axis.

_I told yoouuu_, schuldig hisses. _Seeee_?

crawford can always tell how excited schuldig is by how many extra vowels he inserts.

The man destroys everything in his wake as he moves through the garden, leaving a tortured wreck of foliage, but no footprints, no shadow. crawford puts his hand on schuldig's shoulder and applies pressure with his fingertips, even though they're already sitting still.

crawford presses his mouth right up against schuldig's ear to say it, teeth grazing his earlobe. For a moment, wonders what it would be like to bite down hard, wonders if schuldig is full of red too. It doesn't even seem important, this thing that he says, not yet, not with the rhythm he notices for the first time, against schuldig's throat.

crawford waits until schuldig lets out the breath he's been holding in for too long, and then says: _What do you think he's got in that book?_

* * *

_You're just going to let him do it?_

IT'S BEEN WRITTEN.

Dream locks his fingers behind his neck and pushes the vertebrae back into his palms. He would have preferred to do this in The Dreaming, but when it comes to his brother — this brother, at least — everything has to be on his terms. Those clean surgical lights where Dream's eyes should be shift, change wavelength. _It's irresponsible._

IT'S NECCESARY.

That is Destiny. A well-behaved story, purposeful actions and appropriate consequences. A quaint ending to tie it all together. These things do not matter to Dream. _I don't want to be involved._

WE ALL WILL BE.

_And that's written too?_

OF COURSE.

* * *

At night, they sleep wherever they happen to find themselves when they decide to do so. schuldig prefers open fields, buries his fingers to the knuckle in the soil, presses his cheek against the grass. He sleeps later than crawford and wakes with dirt on his face and in his hair, but content and smelling of sap. While schuldig sleeps, crawford pads silently across the garden.

He knows the man's routine, by now. With the cirrus clouds tumbling by, Destiny walks and pages turn. crawford watches, envious.

* * *

You've had them before. The sort of idea that waterlogs your lungs. Swells up in your windpipe. Then you're coughing and sputtering and its falling out of your mouth, and why can't you stop it? That's how it happens for crawford. Something inchoate, at first. Wavering. Then, the abruptness of realization.

_Let's steal it._

_It's chained to his wrist_, schuldig points out. This is possibly the last time he will ever be the practical one, and besides he wants to swim right now. He stands up in the creek, stretches, then shakes his head like a canine. Water droplets bounce of off his hair, land on crawford's nose, and on their clothing, which is strewn across an ornamental hedge. crawford tries not to stare at schuldig's penis or the clear musculature at his hips — but why? He can't recall ever having stared or not stared before.

_Okay_, he amends, _let's just read it then_.

_That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard._

* * *

When they first meet the boy, he communicates in barely perceptible nods. His eyes are narrow, but dark blue, and he paces the poplar grove from one end to another, rhythm deliberate and even. He keeps his hands clasped behind his back, shoulders sloped forward — and it hurts, hurts to even _look_ at that posture.

_You lost or something, kid?_ schuldig asks, and the boy gives a shrug so small that neither schuldig nor crawford is sure that it's a shrug at all.

_You talk?_

Another shrug. Maybe.

Something about the boy's silence gives schuldig the security to speak to crawford as if he were not standing in front of them. _Kinda feel bad for him, you know. All alone out here. We're going to walk up to that place with all the yellow flowers. There are beetles the size of your head, I swear. You want to come?_

crawford thinks he sees the boy nod. He feels something twist beneath his breastbone, but he doesn't know what it is.

* * *

Days later, crawford wakes from a nap to discover them both missing. He finds them at the creek, where schuldig is chasing tri-colored fish with fanned tails. The new boy laughing. It is the first sound crawford has heard him make aloud.

* * *

Because the garden can no more be described in terms of size than the universe can, crawford is surprised to find the red-haired man waiting for him. He wears wide pants, drawn in at the ankle, and dangles by the crook of his knees from a tree branch. The stranger says: _Ah, lovely. You're alone._

crawford has to squint before he realizes that the man's head is _not_ on fire. It is his hair, redder than schuldig's, brushing against the grass like a forest fire. crawford compulsively checks over his shoulder to make sure that the man is actually addressing him.

_Of course I am_, he says and rolls his eyes. _I've been looking for you everywhere_. He gives an exaggerated sigh, places his hands on the ground and kicks over into an upright position.

_Er_, crawford says. _Do I know you?_

The man grins. It is a casually intimate gesture. _I get around to meeting most everyone in one life or another._

He gives a deep bow: _Sometimes, I am a horse. Sometimes, a salmon. In the American Plains, they call me Coyote. In Spain, San Martin Txiki. I am Reynard the Fox. I am El-ahrairah. But in this aspect, I am mostly known as Sky Traveler, Shape Changer, Wrangling Foe, Loptur, Lokehall, Loki. _

_Lo - kee_, crawford says, and the man gives a soft frenzied laugh at the sound of his own name. It makes crawford afraid, but he cannot yet understand that the man is insane, or afflicted by whatever lies past insanity, be it wisdom or treachery or death. His body is composed of inefficient lines, narrow angles. When he steps forward, crawford feels compelled to cover his mouth, the smell of smoke so sharp and sudden. The stranger sings: I _know what you want._

In the distance, a raven veers across the sky, screaming hoarsely. Loki leans in. There is a toxic stink to his breath. _You want to know what's in the book. __His __book._

crawford hears himself mumble something unintelligently, and Loki places s hand on his shoulder. They don't seem right, those palms, deep crosswork, even and geometric as a checkerboard. The man goes on. _I know what's in the book, but it wouldn't be the same if I just __told __you, would it? No, no. You have to see it for yourself, __don't __you? _

_Don't you?_

He doesn't wait for crawford to reply before pulling a glass vial from an inner pocket of his coat. The liquid inside is gold. It is a color crawford has not yet seen, and will never see again — later, he will find replicates of it on Egyptian antiquities, bulbous domes on Russian churches, the halo surrounding the virgin's head in an Italian painting. None of these colors will ever compare with the original.

crawford is reaching for it before he even realizes he's moved, but the man draws away. Slips it back into his pocket. _No need to __rush__, now. I'll require something in return. You know how these stories go, of course._

_These stories?,_ crawford says. Everything is given freely in the garden, and he cannot yet comprehend the concept of trade, but something unfurls in his stomach. A sensation of emptiness, weightlessness, that he does not yet know is hunger.

_Meet me here in a week_, the stranger tells him.

* * *

It is two days later. schuldig is pinching grass to squeeze out the sap. _I'm just saying you're acting a bit obsessed. _

_Obsessed_, crawford repeats. _What does that mean?_

schuldig responds with an ambiguous gesture.

* * *

Five days later, the trees look disheveled in the rain. Flora extinct to every other garden in the universe strains upwards towards the droplets. schuldig and the new boy agitate the songbirds, spooking them out of their nests. crawford watches from beneath a canopy so tightly wound, not a drop of water passes through.

* * *

_You just have to say it_, Loki tells him.

_But I don't even know what it means._

crawford watches the gold liquid spinning in the vial.

_Exactly. Can't be very important, then. Can it?_

_If it's not important, then why do you want it so badly? _

It is what crawford says, but he cannot move his eyes away from the vial. The liquid traps and shapes the light like a ghost, caught in a certain wavelength.

It is only when Loki moves to slip the vial back into his coat, that crawford says: _Wait. Hold on._

_Say it_, Loki tells him.

_I give Schuldig to you._

The vial is warm in his palm, expanding and contracting gently like the ribcage of a living thing. Loki tells him what to do. He says, _You'll have an hour. No more. No less._

* * *

Actually, Destiny is quite looking forward to being tricked.

His gait takes on a pleasant sway. His hood lowers over his face, but it cannot hide the upturn at the corner of his mouth. He is serving the future, in a certain way, after all. He walks south, to the edge of the garden; beyond this limit are mountainsides lined by miles of old wall, towers severed midpoint, unreachable to any who would try. They are remnants of past universes to whom no one now belongs, and who now belong to no one.

He already knows that the flowers are tainted; that the petals have been infused with dreadful snake poison, collected in the bowels of the earth. He knows that god-poison is not man-poison; he knows it only has to touch the bare pads at the bottom of his feet to diffuse across his skin.

AH, THIS IS LOVELY, he thinks, settling back into the shade of a poplar tree. PERHAPS I WILL VISIT MY BROTHER AGAIN.

Has he ever slept before? Have any of them ever slept? He settles the book conveniently beside his thigh, and gives the chain some slack.

Destiny is blind, so he does not need to close his eyes.

He waits.

* * *

Dream pinches the bridge of his nose. In The Dreaming, he is hyper-lifelike, with indentations beneath each cheekbone. _Let me get his straight. By reading the book, he will change its outcome. But he needs to read it, because it's already been written that the outcome will change. You read a lot of Borges, don't you? _

THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSEQUENCES IF IT HAD NOT BEEN ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.

_Consequences_, Dream repeats idly. _This will have consequences. _

Destiny does not respond. It is his final dismissal of any further questions pertaining to the subject. In the Dreaming, a flock of translucent birds move across the sky, crying out.

* * *

Reading the Cosmic Log is not like reading any other book. Later, crawford will become familiar with the sensation — like dipping into a current of knowledge that is always unreeling, always running forward — to have this knowing delivered directly into his mind with no packaging, no precursor. The Cosmic Log is limitless, despite its covers, but its contents are finite. Volumes repeat, sometimes identical, sometimes with only slight variations. Broad patterns are never broken. There are plot lines which intersect briefly. Some which never diverge from their involvement with each other. Some which appear to run parallel, appear to ignore each other. But all stories spiral in towards a single ending. A unified point beyond which none will go any farther.

The appropriate page has already been opened to him.

The enormity of the information won't hit him until days later. He'll be walking along the creek and suddenly double over, retch dryly, and let out a wordless sob into the ground beneath him. It is a new emotion in the bundle of nerves at the base of his spine, in the little spaces in-between each eyelash. schuldig will find him and put a hand on his back and ask: _What's wrong? What's wrong?_

But crawford will only be able to shake his head.

* * *

crawford wakes schuldig suddenly, in the night: _Don't worry. I'm going to change it._

And schuldig replies, sleepy, disorientated: _Change what? What are you talking about?_

_We don't stay in the garden forever. We have to leave, and when we leave, we forget — No. I'm going to change it. I'm going to get us out of there. _

schuldig puts a hand on crawford's forehead, incredulous. _You're __shaking__. _

_I have to remember. If I can remember, it'll be all right._

* * *

Then, one day, crawford is gone.

_Not __now__, kid_, schuldig snaps. The new boy is still half-wild. He hasn't spoken yet. He responds to schuldig by lifting his upper lip, revealing blunt teeth and too-pink gums.

_None of that_, schuldig says, gentler this time. _You stay here. I'm going to go look for him. _

In the garden, the sky looks like tinfoil. schuldig walks along the creek and finds nothing in the citrus groves, in the tangled rose bushes, in the rows of hydrangea and wild orchid, in the kingdom of the dragonflies, the beetles, the bees. Finds nothing beneath the long shadows of the statues. Finds nothing in the abandoned turrets or the moss-covered fountains.

_Fuck_, he says. He doesn't know where he learned the word, but he likes it. _Fuck, fuck, fuck. _

The day passes. The fall of light is violet. schuldig sinks into the wet creek bank and feels scant and pale and weak. Tomorrow, he will look again. And the day after that. Then, he will give up.

_We don't stay in the garden forever._

Why did he say that? What did it mean?

* * *

In Connecticut, a boy is born. This boy thinks he can see the future. Really, he is only remembering the past.

* * *

Five years after, a prostitute gives birth two months prematurely in the backroom of a whorehouse in Berlin. The whore was one of his, of course, all of them are — but not in the same way as the boy will be. The boy already bares his mark in the tuft of fire-bright hair at the crown of his head. Loki cradles the baby in his arms and the sound of his laughter sticks to the air.

_You will be __guilty__,_ he says. _Guilty like me. _


	2. The Wasteland

title: the book of sand  
fandom: weiss kreuz/neil gaiman's sandman  
characters: crawford/schuldig, bit of farfarello & nagi, the endless, and other surprise appearances.  
word count: 12,137 (whoa, whoa.)  
rating: nc-17, for sex, mild violence, liberal use of a word that starts with f and ends with uck, and ~ schuldig, in general.  
notes: This is probably understandable, even if you've never read any of the Sandman comics. Basically: _"There are seven beings, that aren't gods. They existed, before humanity dreamed of gods and will exist long after the last god has gone. They are - more or less - embodiments of the forces of the universe. They are named - in order of age - Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (who was Delight before). That is all you need to know." (Brief Lives)_

* * *

_part ii, the wasteland_

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

_Öd' und leer das Meer._

~ eliot

* * *

Bradley's mother is beautiful — six feet tall, heavy-lidded eyes, and black black hair that makes men want to go home and strangle their wives. And she's got Old New England shipping money. Good breeding. At least, until she ran off and married that boxer from Brooklyn when she was eighteen and stupid.

He's dead, now. Lost a fight when he was supposed to win or won a fight when he was supposed to lose, or just kept pissing off the wrong bookies, and it's amazing they didn't kill her and their little boy too. It's just another excuse for those high society Greenwich cunts to call her a witch. She's fucked half of their husbands, and the other half think about her every time they jerk off. Crazy fucking witch.

She came back to Connecticut three years later and lives in her dead daddy's house, where she doesn't do anything but take care of that little boy. That frightening little boy with hair like hers. He stares and sits so still it's easy to lose track of him if the room is just dark enough. He smirks like you're the punchline of a joke you don't even get. And he's too damn polite for a kid that age, says please and thank you and offers to pour you a glass of iced tea, like you're not there to fuck his pretty mommy, and that creeps you the fuck out. Just what does he know? What the hell does he know?

* * *

Brad is six when the girl visits him for the first time. He would have been surprised to wake up and find her rifling through his comic collection, if he hadn't already seen it happening the night before. She holds up an issue of House of Mystery.

"I can't _believe_ they're still printing this," she says. "Personally, I like his brother better."

Brad rubs his eyes, gropes for the eyeglasses on his nightstand, and the girl comes into focus. She has a disturbingly compliant face, and is slightly pigeon-toed. She's got hair like his, but blacker and heavy-looking, wisps of it climbing around the sides of her neck. She has makeup on her right eye that reminds Brad of the Wedjat amulets he saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, back when they lived in the city. She is carrying a black folder; there is a white sticker on the tab. The name written on it is B. Crawford.

"Can I help you?" Brad asks.

She laughs, crisp and alert. "Not really. But everyone's been making such a fuss about you, I just wanted to come and see for myself."

"Ah. All right then," Brad is upset about the intrusion, but sees no need to be rude. "Would you like to come downstairs for a cup of coffee?"

He's still clumsy. His hands are entirely disproportionate when compared to his arms, but he is already developing a taste for smart clothing, has sampled both red and white wine, taken an interest in Europe, and dislikes being called Bradley. The comics, he tells himself, those'll have to go soon as well.

"No thanks. Really, I was just dropping in for a looksie." She shifts on her feet, and suddenly reverts her eyes to the black folder in her hands, thumbing across several pages before finding the one she wants. "Now, that's too bad. Such a nice kid."

"That has my name on it."

"Of course. It's your biography. Every step you will ever take, every word you will ever say. The exact taste of the ham sandwich you will eat on July 14th, 1997. The last thing you'll think before you die. But really, it's just an excerpt from a much much larger book."

"Can I take a look?," Brad asks.

The girl tilts her head, and spirals a strand of black hair around her index finger. "Nobody is supposed to see their own file, Bradley. Problem with you is that you already have."

She shrugs and looks at her wrist, but she's not wearing a watch. The girl seems to realize this after a moment, and reaches out instead and pinches his cheek. "I really must be going now. So much work to do. And you and your little friends, you guys are going to keep me real busy. "

Brad rubs his cheek with the back of his hand. He's not entirely sure what has just happened. "So, I guess I'll be seeing you again then?"

The girl winks. "Before you know it, peach."

* * *

The year Brad turns thirteen is the last year he spends in Connecticut. In August, two men in expensive grey suits appear on the front porch and his mother sends him upstairs. She says, "Whatever you do, stay in your room. Stay in your room and lock the door and don't make a sound."

It doesn't matter. He's seen what happens clearly enough in his foresight, but the three of them speak a language he doesn't understand. The harsh syllables echo in their dark-carpeted living room. He hadn't even known his mother spoke German — halting over-articulated German, but German.

He asks about it, after the men leave, and she smiles and touches his hair and tells him, "Such a beautiful boy. Such a special boy. You've been accepted to a school. A school for special boys like you."

This confuses Brad, but he is also vaguely pleased. He's skipped two grades already, but his classes bore him. He had been taunted for his age until he threw a left hook, and the kid had to have two surgeries to reconstruct his shattered cheekbone. It had taken a lot of mommy's money to keep Brad from being expelled (and a lot of nights of the Dean coming around the house, after they'd figured he'd gone to sleep). Now no one speaks to him, which is all the same. They are all so ordinary. Endless repetitions of the same basic model.

Two weeks later, his mother is helping him pack. Only a few somber-colored dress shirts and a pair of slacks. One wool coat. "Austria can get cold," she explains. "But they'll have a uniform for you when you get there."

A man in a black Mercedes Benz arrives in their driveway to take him to the airport. His mother doesn't begin to cry until she walks him to the door. Then she's on her knees and kissing his face, making drooping pathetic noises. There are saliva and tears on Brad's face, but not his own. "Don't worry," he tells her. "I'll be back for Winter Break."

She laughs and cries at the same time; some pure inarticulate sound. "Right," she says. "Right."

* * *

The architecture of Rosenkreuz is not particularly striking. No columns, no high-steeped roofs, no thick opaque windows. It looks more like a hospital than a school. But the air is charged and dense. Even the clouds conform into grandiose shapes; arches, steeples, summits.

* * *

On the day of his acquisition, Schuldig is undressed and bound to a stretcher so that his head can be shaved. This is not standard procedure, as most new entrants have already suffered enough trauma that having their hair taken seems like a comparatively pleasant ordeal. But Schuldig is eight-years-old and he has blood on his mouth, and the nurse that had initially approached him with the clippers is in the next room. He can tell by the thoughts of the doctors that her fingers are so mangled it's not likely they can be reattached.

He is ten pounds underweight and has ammoniac breath and serous fluid in his tissue, and only speaks enough to call the nurse a dog-faced whore. Rosenkreuz doctors are usually more curious than sadistic — rather keep the brain intact to poke and prod around in — but they wouldn't mind seeing this kid's head dripping down the white walls. Not at all.

A new nurse empties a syringe into his arm. The drugs give Schuldig a euphoric, strange kind of feeling, almost like vertigo. When he wakes four days later, he is still dizzy. There are ugly welts forming on his arm from a series of vaccinations. Every three hours, a woman appears and gives him more drugs — drugs to make him calm, antibiotics, drugs that will inhibit his telepathy (he has no idea what that word means, but they keep using it to refer to him).

He throws a lot of them up; half-chewed tablets that taste worse on the second run, his own sick yellow saliva.

Mostly, Schuldig sleeps.

* * *

When Desire finally finds her twin, she has her fat fingers against Schuldig's head, soothing. "That one is mine," Desire warns. "Mine."

"And mine too," Delirium piques, from behind.

Despair withdraws. The hooked ring on her index finger leaves a trail of blood on Schuldig's irritated pink scalp. Her laughter is interrupted by a wet cough; there are fungoid spots on her tongue, and she wipes away phlegm with the back of her hand. "But this place," she says, "this place belongs to me."

She pauses for a moment, looks from Delirium and back to her twin and then mutters: "Why did you have to bring her?"

* * *

In five years, Schuldig can speak four languages and understand so many others, he no longer bothers to count. He grows tall, and carries himself with an awkward, aristocratic kind of grace. He is well acquainted with the whirling miscellany of the human brain. He knows how to hitch a ride in an occipital lobe, silent and watchful, knows how to shift through memories in the temporasomething— so many damned names, why do they want him to know all these fucking names? How can you put a name on knowing how to crawl right into those neurons and trigger them wild or pinch them shut forever?

Six months after his acquisition, he'd learned it was best to cooperate with the tests. Zener Cards with stupid little stars and circles on them. Genzfeld experiments that left him sobbing and sobbing into the empty white noise in those headphones. Sensory deprivation, isolation, blindfolds wrapped too tightly around his head. Statistical analysis of his results had placed him as a Level 8. Before then, they had assumed telepaths lost the ability to function in other capacity beyond Level 5.

Schuldig, twelve-years-old, is not entirely sure what this means — only that it keeps the staff from blowing his brains out whenever he is brought in for disciplinary action.

* * *

Crawford had _Seen_ the red-haired boy long before he'd ever seen him; slumped into a desk at the back of the classroom where they teach Advanced Psychic Shielding. It's a class for older students and the red-haired boy is too young to be here. His cuticles are bloody. He is wearing an ill-fitting uniform, and has to roll the sleeves up to his wrists and there's a bruise there and little crescent moon marks from someone else's fingernails.

Brad usually sits at the front of the room, but he's running late today, and the only desk left is the one next to the red-haired boy, but he doesn't make a fuss about it. He _Saw_ that too.

Eventually, Brad has to turn and snap at the boy to stop fidgeting. "Can't concentrate."

"Fuck you," he says back in English, which sounds foreign to Brad, because he's heard nothing but German for three years now. So polite, to curse at him in his native language.

Brad rolls his eyes and turns around. But at least the kid quiets down a bit.

* * *

Then, later that week, he crashes into Brad's chest while storming out of the bathroom. It's painful. The boy has too many knuckles and kneecaps and smells like cigarettes and pine disinfectants.

"I didn't even know you were there," he says, and sounds amazed.

Brad ignores him.

* * *

Schuldig plops down besides Brad again while he's eating breakfast on Saturday morning. Brad frowns. He's been getting on well with a talented telekinetic — a few years older than him, who's about to graduate and will probably be on a field team before the year is out. He is supposed to sit there today.

"I saw a movie about America once," the kid says. He talks with half-a-biscuit in his mouth. "There was cowboys. Rode horses from town to town and robbed banks and had gunfights with each other. Was it like that where you lived?"

"Yes," Brad says, but only because he's distracted by the vision scrolling across his mind. Suddenly, he decides he really doesn't care whether or not the telekinetic gets to sit with him anymore.

* * *

_One year later. _

For a moment, Crawford is afraid Schuldig's ribcage will collapse beneath him. The boy's collarbones are crushed painfully against his.

How can they even align this way? Schuldig is a full head shorter than him — or is he? Schuldig is always shuffling from one foot to another, picking at the skin beneath his nails, tugging at that aureole of hair. It's hard to take an exact impression of height..

Brad doesn't know who he manages to steal cigarettes from — they are always a different brand, most of them stale, and he lights up another before he's even done with the last. He only stops smoking when Brad is fucking him, and only because he wants to kiss, bite at Brad's jawline, suck on his bottom lip.

Crawford only complains about the taste of Schuldig's mouth until Schuldig starts fiddling with his tie, hands suddenly losing their agility. It is Rosenkreuz institution wear: grey blazer, grey tie, grey slacks. Can't have too much color, too much stimulus for some of the younger ones.

Brad likes to strip it off Schuldig layer by layer, sloughing the weight off the younger boy's shoulders — ritualistic, this, a deep personal symbol for Brad but not for Schuldig, who squirms and resists Crawford's methodical hands. Schuldig aims only for speed, wanting to be out of those itchy regulation t-shirts, get his hand around Brad's cock.

They have to sneak up to the roof, sometimes. The teachers have taken too much of an interest in the prodigal precognitive boy from America to not be monitoring his room. And Schuldig is rooming with a high-level empath who can only be out of the dorm for so long before risking a severe traumatic episode. Schuldig thinks he's probably scheduled for termination, but he's also got a red folder an inch thick with his name on it, and he doesn't want to dwell on that sort of thing.

It's cold today on the rooftop. Autumn is embalming summer. The distant mountains only silhouettes, each day whiter at the summit. Every time a stiff wind blows, the trees are bared a bit more.

Schuldig, shivering in his boxers, clamps his teeth together. "Fuck, who's stupid idea was this?"

"Yours," Brad says evenly. Schuldig presses against him. He tries to shove his arms down the length of Crawford's sleeves, but he can only squeeze his forearms in, fingertips brushing the inside fold of Brad's elbows.

Their erections press together through cloth; Crawford doesn't make a sound, but Schuldig feels something rattle in his chest. He tries to move back and start undressing himself, but their arms are trapped and Schuldig loses his balance, topples into him and smacks his nose against Crawford's breastbone.

"Ow," he says.

"So clumsy," Brad says, drawing back more carefully this time. "It'll be a wonder if someone ever picks you for a field team."

He kisses a bruise on Schuldig's shoulder and Schuldig jumps, but his hands don't pause over the button on Brad's pants.

"Guess there's no point in letting you fuck me anymore, then. This whole relationship is based on cronyism, you know. "

"Ah," Brad says. Then laughs. "Where did you learn _that_ word?"

Crawford wonders briefly whether or not to say the sentence that wants to follow, but Schuldig moves first — their mouths together again, Schuldig's hands cupping the back of his neck. He draws them both down unto that dirty blanket one of them brought up here three months ago. Brad likes the feeling of Schuldig's goosebumps beneath his palms.

Crawford thinks he hears the younger boy say: _Mm, think we could manage to snag a cup of coffee from the kitchen?_ — but no, that won't happen for a while longer.

Schuldig grins against his mouth, aligns his hips against Crawford's and open his thighs. Brad's hands crawl into his hair, tightening around his skull, and normally he can't stand being touched, it's like pressing his ear against an amplifier. Not with Brad, though. Just hands, tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck, hands moving down his torso, hands lifting up his hips, positioning, one hand on his penis, a rhythm, an alignment, angles locking into angles, crevices filled, limbs tangled.

There is a sound in the distance, like a cork-pop. A gunshot, maybe, but far enough to ignore.

When it's over, they'll dress too quickly. Night is coming and they're both shaking now, with no friction to warm them. Schuldig will finally say: "Mm, think we can manage to snag a cup of coffee from the kitchen?"

And Crawford will shake his head, because he knows the night watchmen will catch them if they try. He kisses Schuldig again. The boy looks sleepy, drunk, telepathy reawakening. In the hallways, they'll go back to ignoring each other — too dangerous, too dangerous to even raise the suspicion of friendship, especially with Schuldig and his inch-thick red folder.

Schuldig looks down, picks at something trapped beneath his nails. They're chewed up, always snagging in Brad's skin. It's surprising, because Schuldig is so vain, vain enough to make Crawford laugh, and Schuldig laugh a little too.

"Guess I'll see you later then," he says, and looks up because he wants to see Brad's eyes, wants to see if he can catch his pupils expanding and contracting, those little tell-tale signs of precognition that he hasn't entirely learned to suppress yet.

"Guess so," Crawford says. Which is good enough.

Neither of them notices the androgyne with feline-gold eyes, stroking her nipples absently through the fabric of her red blouse, watching them, smiling.

* * *

The one time Brad tries to tell Schuldig about his childhood, he is called _Muttersöhnchen_, and that's the end of that.

"Well, at least I can _remember_," he mutters angrily.

"I do remember," Schuldig tells him, which isn't entirely a lie. His earliest memories are like a children's model of the world, twinged with bewilderment and darkness. Somewhere, lurking, there is a villain: a fat naked woman squatting on his chest, asphyxiating him with her weight, running a sharp point from his jaw to the base of this throat.

He can remember her wet mouth against his ear, "_Oed' und leer das Meer.__"_

Desolate and empty is the sea.

There are other memories. A girl with striped sneakers and an anxious whispering voice. She has one green eye, one blue. She takes his hand. Tells him: "Schu, you're my favorite. I want to show you something wonderful."

But he knows he can't go with her. Can't go or he'll never come back.

He's embarrassed to tell it. Brad says, "Those were just dreams. Pull yourself together."

But later, Schuldig will still feel that cool palm settling on his forehead. A quiet murmur of a remembered future to ease him back to sleep.

* * *

"Leaving me here?" Schuldig asks. He doesn't sound sad. Angry, maybe, but resigned. He's on Crawford's bed, watching him pack, distrustful of this new professional aura and his clean ivory suits. Crawford graduated a week ago, but his placement on a team doesn't commence until tomorrow. He'll spend the next two years in Berlin, then if he's a good little boy, they'll promote him. He will be.

_Look at you, acting like a bitch on your big boyfriend's bed_, Schuldig thinks, but it doesn't stop him from saying, "I can't believe you're leaving again."

"Again?" Crawford says. His brows are locked. "What are you talking about?"

Actually, Schuldig realizes, he has no idea.

* * *

At one AM, the alarms go off. By one-fifteen, a sixth of the building is on fire, and groups of students are crushed against each other in the halls, a mass of disembodied arms and legs, painted with ash. Schuldig hopscotches from one mind to another until he reaches the source of this disturbance — two pyrokinetics, and one telekinetic of astounding power — caught midway through their escape attempt. They know they're going to die. Now, their plan has been stripped down: take as many others with them as possible.

Schuldig doesn't find this particularly inspiring. It is the other feeling, strange, distant, but somehow _known_. The electric singe of other people's panic on his brain.

It is a feeling as old as the universe. Older. The crashing nonsense tides of primordial sea. The feeling of snake venom in his eyes. The heat of fire on his face. Chaos.

_Chaos_.

Schuldig makes it onto the rooftop, and notes idly that his old blanket is still there. He scales down the side of the building and watches a boy in flaming clothes run out across the lawn.

He can hardly contain his own excitement.


	3. Museums of Fear

title: the book of sand  
fandom: weiss kreuz/neil gaiman's sandman  
characters: crawford/schuldig, bit of farfarello & nagi, the endless, and other surprise appearances.  
word count: 12,137 (whoa, whoa.)  
rating: nc-17, for sex, mild violence, liberal use of a word that starts with f and ends with uck, and ~ schuldig, in general.  
notes: This is probably understandable, even if you've never read any of the Sandman comics. Basically: _"There are seven beings, that aren't gods. They existed, before humanity dreamed of gods and will exist long after the last god has gone. They are - more or less - embodiments of the forces of the universe. They are named - in order of age - Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (who was Delight before). That is all you need to know." (Brief Lives)_

* * *

_part iii, museums of fear_

with each morning less than zero,  
humanity is a hammer to the brain,  
our lives a bouquet of blood,

you can watch  
this fool still with his harmonica  
playing elegiac tunes while  
slouching toward Nirvana  
without  
expectation or  
grace.

~ bukowski

* * *

He hears thoughts about Crawford from the staff now and again. Such a bright young man. Obedient. Analytical. He'll go far.

But the people that think this hate Crawford too.

Four years later, Schuldig receives news that a team in Germany has requested a telepath with his credentials. He's expected this for some time now. He'd hoped for it, in the beginning, but now that it's happening, he doesn't know how to feel.

The problem is he can't sleep.

Actually, that's not it at all. He can sleep just fine. It's the dreams that are the problem.

Sometimes, he finds himself in a library. It is a single circular room with shelves that spiral up so high, his distance vision fails before he sees an end. He can only imagine the domed ceiling that must be there. Old oil lamps color the room sepia. Every sound in the library is clear and deep.

The librarian is never happy to see him, "Oh no, not _you_ again. You're friend isn't with you, is he? Never seen such a pair of troublemakers."

"Do I know you?" Schuldig asks.

"Just don't _touch_ anything."

The man waves his hand hastily, and goes back to dusting the volumes on the lower shelves. He wears undersized round eyeglasses, and has a carefully modulated voice, with a note of serious business in his manner — he wears a blue suit, and a small old-fashioned bowtie. The man is tall, taller than Schuldig, and not many people can claim that anymore. Schuldig resents it.

He traces the letters engraved on the marble walls with his fingertips. Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic. Somehow, in the dream, he understands them all.

On occasion, the raven shows up to keep him company. Schuldig _likes_ the raven; likes its little raven brain, its uncomplicated pragmatic thoughts. No existentialism, no sexual identity problems, no annoying obsessiveness about personal hygiene or social manners. Schuldig tells him about Rosenkreuz; he tells him how the week before, he got into a fight with a pyrokinetic. Got his shoulder burned, bad, but then the other boy was slumped over and bleeding from the nose and dead dead dead.

"You're kinda fucked up, kid," the raven tells him.

To be perfectly honest, these are the most boring dreams Schuldig has ever had.

But there are others

There's the pale man with white hair and sunglasses. He kisses and kisses Schuldig until he's turned on and clutching at his face, trying to knock off those sunglasses, but oh god, there's no eyes under there. No eyes, just two sets of teeth beneath each lid, gnashing, drooling, hungry. Schuldig wakes up hard, coming, but calling out, hands over his face, afraid.

He wants to find a reason behind the dreams, but knows better than anyone there's nothing mystical about his brain. Chemicals sloshing back and forth. Little electrical pulses. Networks, circuits. What do they want? What do they mean?

* * *

It is Schuldig's first airport, and already he is fond of them. The esoteric machines, the metal detectors, presenting his forged passport at customs, exchanging currency. He likes conjugating verbs in foreign languages correctly. He likes the satisfaction of finding his seat number on his own.

Before the airport, he'd made the taxi wait while he bought new clothes. He only had the cash Rosenkreuz had given him to get from Austria to Germany, so they are second-hand and smell richly of someone else, but at least they're not grey. He buys a paramilitary jacket and oversized boots. He ties a string of little red beads around his wrist, because there's no one to tell him he can't. He buys a tube of hair dye, and colors his hair bright green in a bathroom at the Vienna International Airport.

He's not stupid enough to think his placement in Germany is a coincidence.

Berlin is not like he remembers it — a clump of neon lights, hissing traffic, music that makes his teeth clink together painfully. Crawford (not Brad anymore) picks him up in a black sedan, and Schuldig sits in the passenger seat with his forehead pressed against the window. He takes in the wet highlights on the sidewalks, the low brown clouds, and the wail of an ambulance stuck in traffic.

Maybe Crawford thinks he is nostalgic. He takes a long way back to the apartment. There are artificial lights on the linden trees, and Schuldig can see the Brandenburg Gate to the West. If they were speaking, Schuldig would tell him to fuck off, this place isn't home, and he doesn't even remember it.

But they're not speaking.

* * *

They live in the city center and Crawford is already habituated to the mechanical rumble of traffic, but Schuldig, who can't sleep anyway, stays up late into the night. Crawford's previous partner has been reassigned to Switzerland, and it's just the two of them.

"So, what do we _do_?" Schuldig asks.

"Whatever the organization needs done in Berlin," Crawford tells him.

"Like _what_?"

But Crawford is never specific. Crawford, still in that well-cut pale suit, worn like a sense of achievement.

In the week before they are given an assignment, Schuldig sits on the enclosed wooden stairway leading up to their apartment and smokes. Or he rides the buses, back and forth across the city, feeling like a child, mentally maneuvering for a window seat. There are no mental shields here, not like at Rosenkreuz, and he can hear people think and hear them thinking about him. A middle-aged businesswoman who dislikes his green hair. A drunken American marine that stares at his collarbones and his long fingers. Schuldig almost gets off at his stop, follows him up to his hotel room, and lets the marine fuck him in the ass. Then, maybe he'll pull out his shiny new Walther PPK.

Instead, he just goes home.

The next day, Crawford hands him a credit card. There is a calculated warning in his voice, "Get yourself a suit. Some food. Don't spend too much."

Schuldig buys four cartons of cigarettes. He buys volumes of British rock music that he's never heard before. Magazines. Jeans. Sneakers. Caps with clever pictures on them. Wide rectangles of milk chocolate. The most expensive coffee he can find. He is obsessed by the availability of food, his ability to choose what he wants to eat, the variety of colors; potatoes, butter, pastel melons, radioactively orange carrots, honey that reminds him of something long ago, something he can't quite place. He buys jugs of it with Crawford's credit card, and puts it on everything — his toast, in his tea, right unto his tongue.

"If you had any idea what that looked like, you would never do it again," Crawford tells him.

But Crawford doesn't turn away.

* * *

"Why haven't we fucked yet?" Schuldig finally snaps.

"You hardly even talk to me."

Schuldig doesn't see what that has to do with anything. His mouth purses. A remark is made, but not spoken.

* * *

"Two weeks and we haven't done shit. Why am I here?"

"Because I told you I'd get you out of there."

"You never said that, Brad. When did you fucking say that?"

"I — I can't remember. Not exactly, at least. "

* * *

Aside from precognition, Brad Crawford also has a talent for attracting strange company.

"You've been waiting for me," the man says.

Crawford waits until he's taken a seat and summoned the waitress over to order a glass of wine, before saying, "In a matter of speaking."

"You knew I would come."

"Yes."

"But you don't know who I am."

"No."

The waitress brings two glasses of red wine on a copper tray. His companion is kept partially dark by the strategic placement of his chair and by the wide brim of his hat. Crawford can only take in an impression of his face. He wears an eye patch on the right, and has a grey ringleted beard. There is a powerful smell to him; scorched earth, woodlands, something crisp and metallic like animal blood. Funny, Crawford can taste it too, in the wine, but he sips at it anyway, not wanting to appear rude.

The man's cane is carved with images of horses, wolves, hunters in fur coats. Crawford's nod of inquiry towards the engraved letter-shapes at the bulbous handle is ignored. The man says, instead, "Business first, Oracle."

The stranger speaks English, but with an accent so heavy it sounds like a lost Germanic dialect. And because he responds to the question Crawford hasn't asked yet but was about to, he suspects the man is at least weakly precognitive. "I am not associated with your organization, nor any other. My interests are entirely personal."

"Your interests," Crawford repeats, mulling this over. "And you're knowledge of my abilities?"

"I am associated with prophecy in many of my aspects".

He wants Crawford to understand something, but he wants him to understand it without having to ask questions. Crawford _doesn't_ understand, but he can pretend.

The man digs a packet of cigarettes out of his coat without offering one to Crawford. He ignites the tip with a silver lighter that looks expensive and reliable. Smoke trickles out of his mouth, becomes trapped under the brim of his hat and obscures his face farther. "Are you already aware of their plans for you in Japan?"

"Vaguely," Crawford tells him, honestly. It is still several years from now. There are too many variables that haven't yet come into focus.

"But you have your own plans. And I believe it's safe to say that they differ from those of your organization."

Crawford doesn't answer immediately. He considers reaching for the gun beneath his jacket, but the man waves his hand. "Drink your wine. I assure you, our goals are entirely compatible. "

He pauses, takes a long drag before going on. "They want to summon a demon."

"This, I know."

"This would be disadvantageous to me. Enough competition as it is, you see."

"Competition for what?"

"Attention. "

Crawford can't be sure, but he thinks the man is smiling. "If they succeed, they control the paradigm, and you'll never be free. If they don't succeed, they fall and you walk away. Drink your wine."

Crawford doesn't entirely understand, but he considers this for a moment, and puts the glass down. He doesn't like how the wine makes him feel, heavy, aware of some undercurrent; the unlearned fear of people who aren't like him, people at the mercy of time and ignorance. "And you can help me do this?"

"Among other things. But, as they say, I need you and you need me. "

The man reaches into his coat and produces a small square of paper. Crawford cannot be sure, but he thinks it is marked with an ink drawing of an old-fashioned gas mask.

"This was given to me by an old friend," he says. "It is priceless, but it can only be used once. You'll know the moment." He slides it across the table; Crawford folds it in half, and slips it into his wallet.

The man stands, claps a hand on Crawford's shoulder. "I'm going to send one of my own your way. You'll know him when you see him."

The man points towards his missing eye. "He'll have my mark."

* * *

Schuldig knows he is being followed. The man doesn't even try to hide it — swaggering obviously behind him, with a satisfied animal grin on his face. Schuldig has a gun but the street is crowded and he can't read the man's mind. Must be a pyrokinetic but damn good shields, as good as Crawford's. He is met with a wall of fire every time he tries to probe in. The man's face is pointed and familiar — is he Rosenkreuz, Esset?

It's sloppy, stupid to duck into the alley, away from the crowded streets, away from witnesses. If this man doesn't kill him, maybe Crawford will. Schuldig can only see his silhouette at the other end, backlit, red neon on red hair. He smells of smoke. Definitely pyrokinetic.

Schuldig draws his gun, but does not fire. "Who sent you?" he calls.

Laughter echoes down the alleyway. "There may be a simplistic answer to that, but I have never been particularly inclined towards simplistic answers."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

The better question would be, "Who sent _you_?"

Schuldig fires twice, but there is nothing left for his bullets to hit. Only the man's laughter remains, rebounding from one wall to another.

* * *

Desire is pouting, which isn't unusual. Despair is pouting, which isn't exactly unusual either, but which _is _several million times more disturbing.

"What is this sneaky-stealing-playing with our boys behind our backs?," Desire says. "They've forgotten us, they have."

"No," says Despair, staring at her bare-feet — the color of asphyxiated fish on the shoreline. Her toenails are yellow. "No one ever forgets."

Desire ignores her.

"We'll just have to _make_ them remember."

* * *

Despite this, it is neither Desire nor Despair that Crawford and Schuldig come across first.

It is Death, in the static whirr of the encrypted phone-call Crawford receives at four o'clock on Thursday morning.

It is Death, climbing into the backseat of a black Mercedes-Benz.

Death, in the chamber of the semiautomatic that Crawford gives Schuldig to wear inside his jacket.

Death, in Crawford's voice, low and even. "Stay behind me. Do what I do."

Death, in Schuldig's smile, in his calm nod of agreement.

Death, in the soundless trod of their feet over the man's carpeted office.

Death, in the notes of the last song the man will ever hear. Death, in the minor keys of the first movement of Beethoven's Pathetique. Death, in the crack of a gunshot that overpowers it.

Death, in the emptiness of the man's final thoughts. Death, in the silence.

_Oed' und leer das Meer._

Later, Death in Crawford's eyes, staring out across the cityscape; aloof, inhuman.

* * *

"Are you seriously trying to construct an allegory while fucking me?"

Crawford has his knee digging into Schuldig's thigh. The bone there feels crushed, but his fingernails are leaving deep ridged patterns on Crawford's chest, so it's an even trade. Schuldig lets out a fragment of a word, but it sounds sensible enough, especially when compared to the nonsense patter of his heart, the groan of their floorboards. He feels weight shifting over him, and a hand traps his forearm against the bed.

"Not really an allegory," Crawford corrects, and Schuldig tries to say _semantics_, but Crawford swallows the word. Sometimes, it's like this when they're close. Sometimes, he has to shut Schuldig up just to keep from being infected with that hysteria; has to dig his heels into the bed to keep from being dragged down into that brain.

"It's like," he says finally, when he feels safe enough to break the kiss. "It's like there's something I've forgotten. Something I have to do."

Schuldig _hates_ that. Hates even the implication that Crawford can forget things, can overlook things, can fuck things up like he can. He digs his elbows into the bed for leverage, and tries to topple Crawford over. He can't. He's held fast.

But, at least, Crawford stops talking.

He tries to concentrate on the interplay of their torsos, the direction of energies, the dizzy spells, and the just-washed taste of Crawford's skin. But all he can see is fire. Fire pressed right up to his pupils. Relentless light. Smoke in his matted hair.

Later, he half-sleeps against the cool sweat on Crawford's thigh. There are fingertips on the back of his neck, stroking, adrift. "We're getting a new team member. Two, actually. And we're going to Japan."

"Japan," Schuldig repeats, and readjusts his shoulder-blades. He wonders why Crawford hasn't told him to put out the cigarette, even though he's sleepy, and he keeps dozing off and nearly dropping it unto Crawford's stomach. Crawford doesn't even a flinch. He must know it won't happen.

"Japan," Schuldig says again. He doesn't think anything of Japan, except for what he's seen on television. Dark-haired girls in navy blue skirts and white knee-stockings. Monster movies. Stupid cartoons where everyone has big eyes. "Okay."

"Okay," Crawford says. His body leans in, but his mind is already days, weeks, years ahead of where his hands are tickling the hairs at the base of Schuldig's neck.

Their days are not aimless. Their years, resolute.

* * *

It only happens once, but Schuldig remembers it forever.

His one eye is murderous, that is the only word Schuldig knows to use. The dead man in front of them is nearly skinless. He is turning pink and grey. Farfarello's knife is latched, again, to his belt. Before, he was laughing in a dangerous and radiant way, but now he seems calm — self-aware.

There is a red skull spray-painted on the wall next to them. Schuldig had to chase him down the alley, fucking _chase_ him, and now he's out of breath. That must have something to do with it, he thinks. Don't people start to see things when they're not getting enough oxygen? Don't people start to see weird things? Don't they start to see mad albino-men with wolf pelts thrown over their heads? Skinned wolf jowls with the teeth still attached, sharp and bloody? Don't they see spears — spears in a hand where only a knife was before?

"_Berserker_," Farfarello explains, when he's just Farfarello again. There is a fine Irish tilt to the word.

"Whatever, you crazy motherfuck. "

* * *

"Have you ever noticed _that_ before?"

"Noticed what?"

"Those two birds. Black. Ravens or something. They're always following us around."

"Schuldig, don't be ridiculous."

Still, every now and again, in private, Crawford will take the paper out. He's been through three cities and more than a handful of wallets, but the paper is the only constant. He has the angular lines of the drawing memorized; it's not a gas mask, not exactly. The shapes are too organic. Bone, maybe, a bulbous skull and spine ripped from the body of some prehistoric animal. He holds it in his hands, and senses some presence, some power, lurking in his peripheral vision. But there's nothing there, not really. He should throw it out. Should.

But he doesn't.

* * *

Even now, he knows that they should have died. Schuldig is a narcissist, an egomaniac, but even he can't make himself believe that Crawford's plan was so fail-safe. That the four of them washed up on shore — Farfarello with a broken collarbone, and Nagi with a cut on his cheek, and no other injuries to speak of, none, not even a bruise. They just walked away, walked up the shoreline, to the car that was waiting for them. The engine sputtered to life as Crawford turned the key, and that was that.

He can remember every sensation clearly, which is more disturbing to him than if the whole of the event was hazy in retrospect. Then, he wouldn't have to wonder about those hands that had clutched him by the shoulders, yanked him towards the surface just as he'd inhaled his first lungful of salt water. The voice that had whispered in his ear, "Not _yet_, sonny boy. Not you. Not yet. I have too much fun with you. "

Schuldig had only caught a glimpse of his face, unnaturally pointed and triangular, but that hair had swarmed around him. Like fire. Fire in the water.

He didn't mention it to anyone, especially not Crawford, but months later, Farfarello had bent down and muttered into his ear, breath sticky and sour with adrenaline. "I saw 'im too."

"Friend of yours?"

"No, but an ally, at times. He hates this god as much as I do."

"_This_ god? What the fuck are you talking about?"

* * *

Nagi stays in Japan.

Farfarello abandons them somewhere in Austria. "I am no longer under any obligation to you," he tells Crawford.

Just like that, they're alone again.

* * *

America is venture capitalism and lights, lights, loud minds, Visa, Mastercard, medications that may cause constipation, depression, sexual impotence. America is baseball diamonds, blonde starlets with fake tits that overdose on barbiturates at age twenty-five. America is caffeine, cocaine, nicotine, ephedrine. Lincoln Continentals. Smith and Wesson revolvers. Ice-cold Coca Cola.

Schuldig really likes America.

They spend three months traveling across the country, seemingly with no plan. Miami, New Orleans, Chicago, New York. Brad buys them tickets without asking for Schuldig's approval — "What are you looking for, Crawford? What the fuck are you looking for?"

"You don't have to follow me anymore, you know," Brad tells him.

And Schuldig answers: "That's right. Fuck, I'm free now. So many paths available to me. I'm going to go to Mexico and harvest organs from drunk American frat boys. I'm going to open a fucking bed and breakfast in Salt Lake City. Really, with my resume, those are my only two options."

Crawford's answer is not the only reason he stays, but it's a part of it. "You're not free, Schuldig. Not yet, at least."

"Fuck you," Schuldig says, because he misunderstands, but he calls ahead and books reservations for a hotel in Greenwich, regardless. Something has changed, and he's not entirely sure if this is what he wants anymore. He doesn't want Brad's hand gentle on his waist, doesn't want the unexpectedly tender kiss that follows. He wants _Crawford_. Wants those cruel intelligent eyes. Wants to see a stranger's blood on Crawford's knuckles, smell gunpowder on his fingertips.

"I don't understand," Schuldig says.

"Neither do I," Brad tells him.

Brad comes in Schuldig's mouth, arching his hips helplessly, hands too wrapped in Schuldig's hair to disentangle them without hurting, so he doesn't. They stay, even when Schuldig finally pulls himself from between Brad's legs, slides up, and pushes the top of his head against Brad's bicep. They stay, when Schuldig eventually sleeps, copper winding around his fingers. They stay, when Brad himself drifts off, and they stay as they share their strange dreams.

A tall man with white skin and pinpricks of light where his eyes should be. A raven on his shoulder that says, "Oh hey, Schu. Haven't seen you in a while. Thought the Corinthian had scared you off, but turns out he's all right, man, when you really get to know him. "

The man speaks to them for a long time, but in the morning neither one of them can remember what he said.

* * *

The house looks older than he remembers it. There are spherical masses of water on the floorboards, and spray paint on the peeling walls that says: CUNT WITCH WHORE. The rooms are full of objects that crawl backwards in time, while the world outside moves onwards; rusted iron pots, termites in the once-fine furniture. Even the light is yellowed with age.

Long ago, something happened, and time has trudged towards this meeting ever since. Crawford is at the house because he was always meant to be at the house. Loki is at the house because this confrontation has been a long time in the making, and he knows he can only avoid it for so long.

"Hello again," Loki tells him. He smashes a half-cigarette on the arm of his chair, then flicks it unto the floor. He doesn't flinch at Crawford's pistol, trained directly between his eyes. There are scars around his mouth; when Crawford was crawford, he had never noticed them. "Been looking for me? Rather useless, I'm afraid. You can't find the gods until you've gone mad, or until they want to be found. And in that case, it's probably _they_ that are mad. So, unlucky for you, either way."

"You could shoot me, of course," he goes on. "I might even die for a while. But it would be unpleasant for both of us. The death-curse of a god is not exactly desirable, you know."

Crawford doesn't lower his gun. "Who are you?"

"I just told you."

"You followed me in Germany. And in Japan."

"Still an ego-maniac. It wasn't _you_ I was following. "

He should fire, he knows this. The man is insane. Crawford has a silencer, he could shoot now, and no one would hear. He could wait in his mother's house until night, put the body in his trunk, drive North to the woodlands, and let him rot beneath the earth. But he doesn't. Crawford doesn't understand the words, even as he says them, "Give him back."

"I won't."

Knowledge of the future is like a current, a creek. Crawford wades in. He puts his gun away and takes out his wallet.

The paper looks no different than it did when it was given to him.

Later, he won't remember. Won't remember how the image distorted and the paper somehow seemed to _open, _like a window. He won't remember the man that crawled out, even though the pale face was familiar and his black hair was full of depth and intensity. He won't remember Loki's shriek of anger, or the man's voice, calmly saying, "I owe One-Eyed a favor, unfortunately."

Crawford won't remember those _things_ that wrapped themselves around Loki's wrists — pink and shiny, like internal organs — and dragged him, down, down, into a hole in the ground. Won't remember how the earth shook. Won't remember the screams of pain that followed.

He won't remember how the man turned to him and said, "This is mostly on my older sister's request. She has a soft spot for the two of you, it seems. Now, my _younger_ sisters. I doubt there is anything I can do about their interest in you, I'm afraid. They find the two of you incredibly amusing. You should try to work on that. "

* * *

_post script_

Schuldig knows what the girl is the moment that she takes a seat next to him on the subway. He's suspected they must exist for some time, now. It is in the nature of his Talent, after all, _thought_. And what are the Endless, if not thoughtforms, ideas aware of their own existence?

She is short, and has a finely drawn face, half-hidden by oversized sunglasses and a wild mass of black hair. She's exactly the kind of girl Schuldig would have found attractive, if only she wasn't the anthropomorphic personification of death.

"Fuck," he says, and he's already reaching for the cigarettes in his jacket. Damned if he's going to die without one more smoke. A _train_ crash? What are the fucking odds. Brad is going to laugh his ass off.

The girl plucks the cigarette from his mouth, and takes a drag of it herself, before putting it out on the seat between them. "Relax," she says. "I have an appointment in Washington Heights. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a cab at this hour?"

The train brightens as they near the next station, like it is breaking through heavy clouds. People shuffle in and out. A Coptic priest in black robes. An old man in a tweed blazer with an unlit pipe in his mouth. Two pretty highschool girls that smell like coconut. "Okay," she admits finally. "I just really like trains."

"Me too," Schuldig says.

The doors hiss shut. They sway in unison as the car lurches forward. The girl stares at her plastic sandals. "You weren't really that upset to see me," she points out.

"No, I suppose I wasn't."

"Do you like apples, Schuldig?"

"What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

"_I_ like apples. I like the way they feel around your teeth. How they're kind of sour and kind of sweet at the same time. I like the big chunk of cream cheese in the middle of a bagel. I like every song The Beatles every played. I like how a city sounds in the morning. Like it's slowly waking — an orchestra tuning up. That's one of the nice things about being alive. You get to _like_ stuff. One day, you won't get to do that anymore."

Schuldig considers this. "You must smoke a lot of pot."

Then, after a moment, he adds, "You know, I'm not exactly an earth-shattering-revelation kind of guy."

"No. But I wouldn't be me, if I didn't feel obligated to try. How is Bradley, by the way? I haven't spoken to him since he was yay tall ." She makes a gesture, knee-height, with her hand. "He was wearing glasses three times too big for his face, and he had a poster of the Justice League on his bedroom wall."

"Ah, so the truth comes out. Poor darling. I bet he was bullied in school. You know, this actually explains a lot. "

She stares. He realizes he hasn't answered the question, then attempts, "He's fine, I suppose. Absolutely fucking insane, but fine. His greatest pleasure is planting cryptic little warnings in the most unlikely place he _knows_ I'll look. Yesterday, I was told not to cross 5th Avenue at 4:27, by a note on the last coffee filter in the pack. It would be endearing, if it wasn't so deeply unsettling. "

She laughs. "I think it's nice that the two of you have each other."

Schuldig opens his mouth to contradict her, before he realizes how stupid it is to argue with Death. Actually, lots of people probably argue with Death. Lots of people argue, and it doesn't mean it's going to change anything. Death is death. There is no negotiation with that.

They sit in companionable silence. The train heaves on.

She stands up as they approach the 181st Street station, scrunching her face and stretching her arms out. The doors slide open. "You know," she says, "if you get out at the next stop, there's a park that's really nice this time of year. If you go, feed the pigeons for me, will you?"

Schuldig nods. "Maybe I will."

"Be seeing you," she says.

"You know, those jokes are kinda lame. "

"I know," she tells him, smiling.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
